Internal-combustion engine



March 18, 1947. c. s. JoHANsEN E-rAL INTERNAL GOMBUSTION ENGINE Ivwewohs, Caf-Z Jokarvqer'r and Mogen.; H. 6. Teuer:

March 1s, 1947.v

- c. s. JoHANsEN Erm.

INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE Filed Aug. 22, 1945 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Mogen! R. GQ 7LJe71 Patented Mar. 18, 1947 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINE Application August 22, 1945, Serial No. 611,941 In Denmark December 10, 1943 (Cl. 12B-51) 8 Claims.

The present invention relates to internal combustion engines of the kind in which the strokes of the pistons are controlled and rotary motion is produced by means of a curve track arrangeu ment comprising guiding rollers bearing on the curve track and transmitting the piston force to the same.

In engines of this kind, in order to avoid shocks coming up between the guiding rollers and the curve track, spring means must be provided for biasing the guiding rollers towards the curve track. However, it has proved to be very diicult to avoid fractures of the spring means in the course of time when they are to be strong enough to take up all acceleration forces in the operation and yet are to be kept on reasonable dimensions not conicting with the practical design of the engine.

The invention has for its purpose to devise a simple and reliable arrangement for solving this problem, and to this end according to the invention, an internal combustion engine comprises a cylinder unit of such a configuration, that the stress exerted by the spring means will be substantially constant during the whole cycle of operation, so that the spring means will not, have to work and, accordingly, are not exposed to rupture by fatigue.

Further details of the invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawing in which Fig. i shows a vertical cross section through an example of a curve track motor embodying the invention,

Fig. 2 the same motor in plan view,

Fig, 3 the same motor in side view, and

Fig. 4 a section through a rocking lever with appurtenant auxiliary rocking lever.

For the sake of clearness the illustration of the motor in the drawing is rather outlined, some details that are not necessary for the understanding of the invention being omitted and others being represented in a simplified form.

The drawing shows a two stroke internal combustion engine having a cylinder I with two counter running pistons 2 and 3. One of these, the exhaust piston 2, controls the exhaust ports 4 of the cylinder, while the other piston, the intake piston 3, controls the intake ports 5. The spray nozzle of the cylinder is indicated at 6. To each of the pistons 2 and 3 is hinged a connection rod 'I and 8 respectively, which at its remote end is rotatably connected with a rocking lever 9 and lvrespectively, that is rotatably mounted in the frame of theengne and'at its free end carries a guiding roller II and I2 respectively, preferably (not shown) in the form of a roler bearing, the inner race of which is fastened to the rocking lever, while its outer race forms the rolling surface. The rollers II and i2 bear on the outer surface of a common radial curve track or cam I3 from opposite sides, which cam is fixed t0 the driving or output shaft of the motor. The outer surface oi the cam is composed by a number of sections each corresponding to a cycle of the piston operation. In the embodiment shown the cam has four such Sections, so that a full revolution of the cam and thereby of the driving shaft of the motor will correspond to four cycles of the piston movement. Instead of four sections the cam may comprise any other even number of sections, so that another transmission ratio is attained, e. g, 2:1, 6:1 etc.

With each of the rocking levers 9 and IIJ an auxiliary rocking lever I4 and I5 respectively is rotatably connected, which is besides torsionally connected with the main rocking lever by means of a torsional rod, which in Fig. 4, in the case of the rocking lever 9, is designated by I6. Each of the rocking levers I4 and I5 carries at its free end a roller Il and I8 respectively, which bears on an auxiliary cam I9 and 2t respectively, that is rigidly connected with the main cam I3. The shape and the location of the auxiliary cam I 9 are seen in Fig. l, and from this iigure it will also be seen that the auxiliary rocking lever I4 is turned through an angle of a little mo-re than relatively to the main rocking lever 9. In Fig. 4 the rocking lever 9 and the auxiliary rocking lever Iii are shown in one and the same plane in order to make the illustration of these levers more clear, The auxiliary rocking lever I4 is, as shown in Figs. l and 3, provided with a pin 2l, that plays in a groove 22 in the main rocking lever and thereby limits the rotatability of the two rocking levers relatively to each other, whereby in the case of defects such as jamming of the pistons a security is obtained against over-strain of the torsional rod I6 and against a too great play between the cam and the rollers with inherent shocks occuring between these members. The rocking lever Ii) and the appurtenant auxiliary rocking lever I5 are provided with similar means, which, however, are not shown in the drawing.

The shape of the surface of the auxiliary cam 3 is thus adjusted relatively to the "shape of the surface of the main cam I3 that the angle be'- ltween the main rocking lever and the auxiliary of the rod I6, with which the roller Il will be pressed against the cam I3, will be substantially constant, so that the torsional rod Will practically not have to work, but only to take up elastically the small mutual rotations of the main and the auxiliary rocking lever resulting from inevitable inaccuracies in the surfaces of the cams and from temperature variations. As the roller l1 will never be pressed against the auxiliary cam I9 by a greater pressure than the said constant bias plus the relatively small forces resulting from the acceleration or" the auxiliary rocking lever, the roller I'l and the auxiliary cam I9 may be dimensioned much ieebler than the roller il and the main cam i3, that have to transmit the piston pressure.

The shape of the outer surface of the auxiliary cam 20 is symmetrical to the shape of the outer surface of the auxiliary cam I9 with respect to the vertical centre line, but, for the sake of clearness, it is not represented in Fig. 1.

The example of the motor, which is shown in the drawing, is Very advantageous from a constructional point of view, because full access to cylinder and pistons is obtained by just removing the rocking levers from their bearings.

The shown construction may be modied in many ways without departing from the spirit oi the invention. Thus, it is not necessary that there are exactly two counter ruiming pistons in one and the same cylinder. It is also possible to employ a single piston or more than two pistons working on the same combustion chamber. The motor may also be modiiied so as to Work according to the four stroke principle instead of the two stroke principle,

The motor may of course be developed so as to comprise any number of cylinders. For instance more units of the kind described may be arranged one behind the other on one and the same driving shaft. The compact arrangement of the main cams and the auxiliary cams after one another on the driving shaft will have the eiTect that no torsional oscillations may occur in the driving shaft.

rlhe motor may also be constructed as a reaction motor, so that the cams are stationary, while the cylinder block rotates around the axis of the cams.

Having now particularly described and ascerf tained the nature of our invention and in what manner the same is to be performed we declare that what we claim is:

1. An internal combustion engine comprising a cylinder unit, pistons movable in said cylinder unit, leverages connected with said pistons and carrying guiding rollers in operative contact engagement with a curve track, spring means for keeping the guiding rollers in constant engagement with the curve track, and spring supporting means relatively rotating together with the curve track and so shaped as to keep the spring means under a tension of a substantially constant value throughout the whole operating cycle.

2. An internal combustion engine comprising a cylinder unit, pistons adapted to reciprocate in said cylinder unit, a leverage hingedly connected with each piston and carrying a guiding roller in operative contact engagement with a main curve track, a straining lever torsionally connected with said leverage and carrying a roller in Contact with an auxiliary curve track relatively rotating together with the main curvetrack and so shaped that a substantially constant torsional `stress will be created between the leverage and the straining lever throughout the whole operating cycle.

3. An internal combustion engine comprising a cylinder unit, pistons adapted to reciprocate in said cylinder unit, main rocking levers rotatably mounted in the engine frame and hingedly connected with the pistons by means of connection rods, each main rocking lever carrying a main guiding roller in operative contact engagement with a main curve track, an auxiliary rocking lever mounted so as to be rotatable about the axis of rotation of each main rocking lever, spring means for creating a torsional stress between each main rocking lever and the corresponding auxiliary rocking lever, an auxiliary guiding roller mounted in each auxiliary rocking lever and contacting with an auxiliary curve track relatively rotating together with the main curve track.

4. An internal combustion engine comprising a cylinder unit, pistons adapted to reciprocate in said cylinder unit, main rocking levers rotatably mounted in the engine frame and hingedly connected with the pistons by means of connection rods, each main rocking lever carrying a main guiding roller in operative contact engagement with a main curve track, an auxiliary rocking lever mounted so as to be rotatable about the axis of rotation of each main rocking lever, spring means for creating a torsional stress between each main rocking lever and the corresponding auxiliary rocking lever, an auxiliary guiding roller mounted in each auxiliary rocking lever and contacting with an auxiliary curve track relatively rotating together with the main curve track and of such a shape that there will be a substantially constant angle between the main and the auxiliary rocking lever.

5. An internal combustion engine comprising a cylinder unit, pistons adapted to reciprocate in said cylinder unit, main rocking levers rotatably mounted in the engine frame and hingedly connected with the pistons by means of connection rods, each main rocking lever carrying a main guiding roller in operative contact engagement with a main curve track, an auxiliary rocking lever mounted so as to be rotatable about the axis of rotation of each main rocking lever, spring means for creating a torsional stress between each main rocking lever and the corresponding auxiliary rocking lever, an auxiliary guiding roller mounted in each auxiliary rocking lever and contacting with an auxiliary curve track relatively rotating together with the main curve track, and means for limiting the relative rotatability between each main rocking lever and the corresponding auxiliary rocking lever.

6. An internal combustion engine comprising a cylinder unit, pistons adapted to reciprocate in said cylinder unit, main rocking levers rotatably mounted in the engine frame and hingedly connected with the pistons by means of connection rods, each main rocking lever carrying a main guiding roller in operative contact engagement with a main curve track, an auxiliary rocking lever mounted so as to be rotatable about the axis of rotation of each main rocking lever, a torsional rod for creating a torsional stress between each main rocking lever and the corresponding auxiliary rocking lever, an auxiliary guiding roller mounted in each auxiliary rocking lever and contacting with an auxiliary curve track relatively rotating together with the main curve track.

7. An internal combustion engine comprising a, cylinder, two counter running pistons adapted to reciprocate in said cylinder, a main rocking lever rotatably mounted in the engine frame and hingedly connected with each piston by means of a connection rod and carrying a main guiding roller in operative contact engagement with a main curve track common to both pistons, two auxiliary curve tracks relatively rotating together with the main curve track, an auxiliary rocking lever mounted so as to be rotatable about the axis of rotation of each main rocking lever, spring means for creating a torsional stress between each main rocking lever and the corresponding auxiliary rocking lever, an auxiliary guiding roller mounted in each auxiliary rocking lever, each auxiliary guiding roller contacting with one of vthe two auxiliary curve tracks.

8. An internal combustion engine comprising a cylinder, two counter running pistons adapted to reciprocate in said cylinder, a main rocking lever rotatably mounted in the engine frame and hingedly connected with each piston by means of a connection rod and carrying a main guiding roller in operative contact engagement with a main curve track common to both pistons, two auxiliary curve tracks positioned on opposite sides Number Name Date 20 1,597,474 Nordwick et al Aug. 24, 1926 1,630,273 Nordwick May 31, 1927 1,795,865 Kettering Mar. 10, 1931 1,965,548 Hart July 3, 1934 2,166,211 Gray July 18, 1939v of the main curve track and relatively rotating together with the main curve track, an auxiliary rocking lever mounted so as to be rotatable about the axis of rotation of each main rocking lever, spring means for creating a torsional stress between each main rocking lever and the corresponding auxiliary rocking lever, an auxiliary guiding roller mounted in each auxiliary rocking lever, each auxiliary guiding roller contacting with one of the two auxiliary curve tracks.

CARL STEFFEN JOHANSEN.

MOGENS ROESDAHL GROTH TEISEN.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS 

